The national and state parties have had way to much influence in this simple caucas process we started out with. The failure of the last Presidential Caucas was largely on the State party for not testing the squirrely computer programs they figured would do the job. ( or they knew it would fail and what the National Party wanted?) I'm 73 years old and have followed this process from my mid twenties to present. Each time it changed a little bit, it changed much more the next time. In many cases making it "simplier" when in fact it only made things more confusing. No one was used to anything after a while because the way it was done was always changing! Even the county, district and state conventions were doing the same and the voters, who are the basis of the party, continued to lose their power to "rules". These "rules" stole their vote and their opinion. I well remember district conventions conviening on Saturday morning and not concluding until Monday morning! Going straight through the night, every issue was debated and many people would voice their opinion before votes were taken, even at 3 AM! Not anymore!
The caucas in it's most simple form would have developed into a small group forum, discussing issues and creating planks that reflected these issues had it stayed as it started out. It didn't take long before issue sheets showed up and a simple check mark would identify your catagory of issue, nothing beyond that! So each step along the way to the state convention began to be twisted into this policy makers toy, that allowed the policy makers to make the decisions that the delegates voted on, but had no real say in the creation! Changes were difficult when debate was also handled by the convention seated delegates in mass with a required number of seated delegates having to sign a petition to even bring up something for seated delegates to vote on to even debate! Soon Democratic conventions closed at the appointed hour and what had be ascribed as "Democratic" faded. They went the way of the oposition and relinguished Roosevelt democratic tactics. The Republicans will always win if it is simply a matter of money, and if you look around the Iowa legislature you will see just how true this is!
👍Semantics???
The national and state parties have had way to much influence in this simple caucas process we started out with. The failure of the last Presidential Caucas was largely on the State party for not testing the squirrely computer programs they figured would do the job. ( or they knew it would fail and what the National Party wanted?) I'm 73 years old and have followed this process from my mid twenties to present. Each time it changed a little bit, it changed much more the next time. In many cases making it "simplier" when in fact it only made things more confusing. No one was used to anything after a while because the way it was done was always changing! Even the county, district and state conventions were doing the same and the voters, who are the basis of the party, continued to lose their power to "rules". These "rules" stole their vote and their opinion. I well remember district conventions conviening on Saturday morning and not concluding until Monday morning! Going straight through the night, every issue was debated and many people would voice their opinion before votes were taken, even at 3 AM! Not anymore!
The caucas in it's most simple form would have developed into a small group forum, discussing issues and creating planks that reflected these issues had it stayed as it started out. It didn't take long before issue sheets showed up and a simple check mark would identify your catagory of issue, nothing beyond that! So each step along the way to the state convention began to be twisted into this policy makers toy, that allowed the policy makers to make the decisions that the delegates voted on, but had no real say in the creation! Changes were difficult when debate was also handled by the convention seated delegates in mass with a required number of seated delegates having to sign a petition to even bring up something for seated delegates to vote on to even debate! Soon Democratic conventions closed at the appointed hour and what had be ascribed as "Democratic" faded. They went the way of the oposition and relinguished Roosevelt democratic tactics. The Republicans will always win if it is simply a matter of money, and if you look around the Iowa legislature you will see just how true this is!